What Does the Stormy Investigation Signify?

The British press is often good for news the partisan media (but I repeat myself) in America cover poorly or not at all -- but often also bad for sensationalism. I forgot the latter on Monday when I asked whether the lunatic fringe of the right might sink DeSantis for not extraditing Donald Trump, should he refuse to surrender after an indictment from the hush money investigation in New York. (I think it's a valid, albeit premature question.)

A cursory look at the news suggests that Trump himself fanned the flames by insinuating that there would be a massive confrontation yesterday, and the lunatic fringe of the left (that's still on Twitter, anyway) obliged with its own illustrated lurid fantasies of Trump being arrested.

I wouldn't mind Trump having legal troubles, if he actually deserves them, but would be very disturbed to see America taking yet another step towards Banana Republic if it turned out they were all politically motivated.

I have not followed these investigations much at all, but I am inclined to believe that if anything is of the undeserved (but politically motivated) variety, it's the one in New York. (On the other hand, the one in Georgia looks far worse for Trump, given that Trump's pressuring Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" votes over the phone in 2020 is public knowledge. (Full call embedded below.)

But back to the matter in New York: I don't really know one way or the other, but commentators from both sides say similar things about the case.

First, Dick Morris passes along why he thinks this is a nothingburger:

Andrew McCarthy, former Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, writing in the National Review, explains why Bragg cannot possibly win this case.

It is based on a payment of hush money to Daniels and a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to prevent her from speaking in public.

But McCarthy points out: "a tryst and the non-disclosure agreement do not constitute the crime. Marital infidelity is a moral wrong but not a criminal one. And while hush-money is a pejorative term, and the details of this one are sleazy, NDAs per se are perfectly legal and common in civil-law settlements of claims."

Were Trump to be indicted, it would be for the more prosaic crime of falsifying business records. But for that to be criminal, prosecutors will have to prove something that is obviously not true -- that the records were falsified in order "to conceal another crime." [bold added]

And the folks at Five Thirty Eight speculate as to why they think this "zombie" case has been revived:

That's one of the murkier aspects of the case. The issue is that Cohen paid off Daniels and was reimbursed by Trump -- and that reimbursement was falsely recorded as a legal expense. At the federal level, that could be a campaign finance violation, so that potential case was fairly straightforward to understand. But the Manhattan district attorney is obviously not a federal prosecutor, and it seems likely he will charge Trump with falsifying business records, which can be a felony under New York state law if the records are falsified to commit another crime (or cover it up). So theoretically the underlying crime could be a state campaign finance violation -- or something else we don't know about. [bold added]

In any event, I would hope that the otherwise soft-on-crime prosecutor, Alvin Bragg, either has a real case or decides not to prosecute. Any case will help Trump play the victim -- as his incitement so far -- and reports to the effect that he wants to make the possible court appearance in New York into a "spectacle" -- would seem to indicate.

Any criminal trial of Donald Trump had better be solid, because he will try to use it to stir up trouble.

-- CAV